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" TAMMANY HALL 






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The following address, prepared by tlie Committee on 
Orgnnization, was read by Major Quincy at the final lueeting, 
on the 20th December, of the General Committee of 1875, 
of Tammany Hall, and was unanimously adopted us a fitting 
Address of the Democratic party of the City of New York 
to the P^lectors at large : — 

In closing the labors of the year 1875, the General Com- 
mittee of 'the Democratic Republican party of the city and 
county of New York deems it due to the enlightened public 
(.pinion of the metropolis to publish to the country a clear 
statement of its past and present attitude on the great 
(|Ucstions of the day, and to review the record it has made 
in the work of securing good government in Ne^vl^ork. 

Amid the chaos of parties which followed after the down- 
i'all of the Ring in 1871, the people took refuge in a commit- 
tee of seventy citizens, which was drawn together indiffer- 
ently from the ranks of the two great parties. A so-called 
non-partisan reform government was installed in power in 
1872 ; but the record which it made was not creditable, and 
the services which it rendered were n )t such as the people 
had a right to expect at the hands of true reformers. It was 
chiefly usef^ul in the lesson it taught of the necessity to 
foster the healthy and rival agencies of two regular and 
responsible political organizations in the government of our 
citv no less than in that of the whole country. 



7? 



Publicists and statesmen have laid it down with the 
precision of an elementary truth that the affairs of any nation 
or republic are best administered and most honestly pro- 
moted where the people are divided into two patriotic but • 
opposite and competini^ parties, (.avalier and Puritan, Whig;. " 
and Tory, have been the great and useful divisions in Eng- 
lish politics since the dawn of constitutional government in 
(jreat Britain, Federalist and Republican, Whig and Dem- 
ocrat, Democrat and Republican, have been the rival claim- 
ants for the suffrages and leadership of the American people 
since the adoption of the Constitution in 1789. 

Irresponsible organizations may accede to power in times 
of commotion ; but they are at best but the makeshifts of the 
hour, restrained by no accountability to punishment or reward, 
the prey to the proletarian agitators of society, and constant 
elements of danger to the public liberties 

Impressed with such convictions, we, the representatives 
of the Democratic-Republican j'arty of the city and county 
of New York, detern.ined, after the riuhteous overthrow of 
the Ring robbers, to rally to the support of our great party 
in the supreme peril by which it was confronted. 

Believing in the principles of Democracy, anchoring our 
faith in the creed of Jefferson, we resolved to stand by the 
time-honored Democratic ship from which the pirates had been 
driven, and to try and guide it safely out of the tempest and 
storm that threatened to sink it We made no bargains, 
sacrificed no principle, invited to our side no enemy of the 
Democratic party, but. dedicating our labors to the vindica- 
tion of the truth and the maintenance of the right, as Jeffer- 
son taught the one and Jackson enforced the other, we reor- 
ganized Tammany Hall conformably to regularity and party 
usage; we drove from its portals the still powerful remnants 
of the adherents of the Ring, who obstinately contested the 
ground inch by inch against the true representatives of the 
Democracy, and we restored to the people of this metropolis 
the right to govern themselves, which that Ring had robbed 
them of in the day of its power. 

The verdict of the American people in 1874 was not simply 
intended (though it meant that, too) as an emphatic choice 
of Democratic leaders for the future. Its dimensions were 
larger; its significance was more solemn. It was the protest 
of freemen against the continuance of Grantism and the 
further domination of the military power. New York was the 
Banner State in that great political revolution, for in this 
city reorganized Tammany led the column of reform. We 



~^ha(l defeated the unholy alliance between Tweed and the 

^Custom House, and driven it from power in the City Govern- 

*^uient. We had returned honest and able iudoes to the 

Cybench of the Supreme and other courts, whose record is 

^^Cbefore the community, challenging its admiration and re- 

'^spect. and redounding to the credit of the party which elected 

them. When at last the waters divided and the revolution 

came in 1874, the true party of reform led the great host 

in New York, assailing organized dishonesty in the State, as 

it had already assailed and overthrown it in the city. 

The Democratic ticket swept both city and State, and the 
opportunity had arrived to make good our professions of 
reform. 

A YEAR OF DEMOCRATIC RULE. 

For twelve months the Empire State of the Union lias 
been governed by the Democratic party. The Senate, hold- 
ing over from a former year, alone remained in the hands 
of the Republicans. The Democratic Assembly reduced the 

public expenses by a system of retrenchment more rigid 
and searching than had been practised in the Legislature 
since 1860. 

The exorbitant, salaries of county officers, which had grown 
year after year by successive exactions of corruption, were 
cut down in this city alone almost a hundred thousand 
dollars per year Special legislation, the parent of a thou- 
sand frauds, was killed by constitutional amendment. The 
railroad monopolies, which for so many years had entered 
the lobby, purse in hand, thwarting the will of the people 
in a hundred ways, met their first great defeat in the Demo- 
cratic Legislature of 1875, in the memorable struggle over 
rapid transit 

If the depreciated value of real estate in this city and the 
languishing prosperity of all business interests should be 
traced to their causes, it would be found that, chief among 
them, the underlying cause of the retarded growth of New 
York, is the want of adequate terminal facilities. The 
stream of population has poured so steadily outside the city 
limits, especially into New Jersey, in quest of cheap homes, 
that hundreds of millions of wealth made here and 
belonging here liave been diverted from the legitimate 
channels of the Metropolis and have gone to the enrichment 
of other places. This hemorrhage of the life blood of New 
York could be stopped but in one way, and that way was 



barred for the past ten or fifteen years by the railroad kinp^s 
of the lobby, who held in their grasp the trading politicians 
of successive Republican Legislatures. Rapid transit, which, 
by fixing the population to the soil, would invigorate the 
energies of the metropolis with new life; which would build 
up the waste r)laces of the whole island and rescue fiom 
universal paraly«is the interests of real estate ; this has been 
for the past decade our crying want and paramount necessity. 
It was by the representatives of the Democratic party that 
this great exigency was met, that the lobby was defeated. 
and rapid transit secured to the city of New York. We 
point to the record of a single year of Detnocratic rule in the 
State with justifiable pride. 

If we turn to the city our stewardship offers an equally 
good account of itself Dishonesty, rebuked into its hiding- 
places, has not appeared in a single deptirtment .>f the City 
Government controlled by Democratic officials. We chal- 
lenge the most bitter enemy of the party to place his finger 
on a single corrupt act — a single dereliction on the part of 
any official nominated and elected by the Tammany Democ- 
racy in 1874 We challenge the most bitter enemy of tho 
party to point to a single dishonest or incapable officer in any 
department of the City Government who owes his place to 
the appointment of a Democratic Mayor and the confiruuition 
of a Democratic Board of Aldermen It cannot be done. 
" By their fruits ye shall know them." The pledges we 
iLiade to the people last year we have put into practice this 
year. We have cut down expenses, pruned out ring excres-' 
cences wherever we could reach them, made no terms with 
corrupt politicians, and given New York the best local 
government it has had for twenty-five years. 

THE LATE ELECTION. 

Inspired by the inflexible purpose to take no step back- 
ward, we placed before the people at the late election candi- 
dates for office worthy of their support, and representative by 
their ability and incorruptible honesty of the reforiu princi- 
ples we uphold. 

Perhaps in a utilitarian age purity, like optimism, cannot 
always be made a successful dogma of political ethics; but 
its moral victory is always assured to those who have the 
courage to practise it, and, whatever the temporary success 
of placemen and demagogues may be. the people will yet 
find out that a mistake has been made and realize the lesson 
of the " ill-husbandry of injustice." It is quite a suggestive 



5 



fact thcat the very papers wliich opposed our candidates the 
most bitterly began to sound their praises as soon as the 
election was over, and to express patketic and eloquent regret 
over their defeat. We had expected Te Deums, but lamenta- 
tions alone resounded- The minor key of rejjret may yet 
swell into the wSympliony of self-condemnation. 

The old tactics of the Tweed ring and the Custom- tlouse 
Republicans were brought to bear against the Democratic 
party at the recent election. The very men whose names 
are an evil und a reproach to the community, and who figured 
(as the records of the courts abundantly show) in nearly 
every raid on the treasury during King rule, have renewed 
their former terms of intimacy and union with the Custom 
House Republicans. 

The cant and hypocrisy of principles are at last boldly 
thrown oiF by the latter. A Presidential campaign ap- 
proaches, and the party of '' great moral ideas " again falls 
into line behind the political tramps whom Tweed has be- 
queathed to New York. 

A new political alias is adopted by these Ring politicians, 
and this time it is " Anti-Tammany." Their monumental 
infamy is already inscribed in the official tomes of the city. 
The utmost vigilance of the people will be required to pre- 
vent a repetition of their crimes. 

ISSUES OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CAM- 
PAIGN. 

At the time the Democracy of New York was effecting 

the purification of Tammany Hall, the conduct of national 

affairs under a Republi'an Administration had brought 

the American name into a by-word of reproach and shame 
tiiroughout the civilized world. The demoralization caused 
by the war had become, after seven or eight years of peace, 
more widesoread than ever before ; the use of Credit Mobilier 
stock had debauched the easy morality of many of the 
highest officers of Government; "corners" in gold, in 
whiskey, in grain, in iron, in worthless railroad stocks, were 
multiplying on all sides; but step by step with their growth 
was the progress of special legislation, was the increase of 
corrupt subsidies, the accumulation of giant monopolies, the 
spread of legalized ssvindling and licensed robbery, like that 
of Jayne's in the Customs and Joyce's and McDonald's in 
the Revenues Why continue the black roll of shame and 
dishonor which the military party has introduced into the 



administration of Federal aifairs ? Is it matter of wonder 
that this saturnalia of licentiousness and national debauchery 
should have culminated in a crash as terrible as it was melan- 
choly and desolating — the financial cataclysm of 1873 ? Is 
it matter of wonder that the sincerity of the President's 
prayer, " Let us have peace/' was seriously doubted when 
he and his Cabinet approved of the infamous " banditti" 
dispatch, and the dispersion of the Leo:;islature of Louisiana 
by General Sheridan and his dragoons ? Peace indeed ! 
with sovereign States overrun and hurled from their ap- 
pointed spheres, while a mob of thieving adventurers con- 
sumed the substance of the land ! Peace indeed ! with a 
Polandized South and a Cossack reconstruction as the out- 
come of Grantism in a free, constitutional Government ! 

When the party which had thus tarnished the honor of 
the American name came before the people at the next gen- 
eral election, the responsibility for Republican misrule was 
fixed, as we have already said, where it justly belonged, and 
the Democratic party was returned to power by overwhehn- 
ing majorities Baffled and defeated in every previous 
scheme to strengthen his political fortunes, the President at 
last changes front in the face of his victorious opponents, 
discards the " bloody shin " as an obsolete rag. and. nailing 
to the mast the black flag of Know-Nothingism, unsheathes 
his sword for a " religious war." 

THE "KNOW-NOTHING'' FIRE-BRAND. 

The Republic of the United States for 100 years has en- 
joyed the blessings of civil and religious liberty. Reliuion, 
having descended dove-like on white wings from Heaven, 
sits peacefully brooding over the land where conscience is 

free and toleration is interwoven amonothe sacred muniments 
and titles of our social and political compact Suddenly 
and without warning the Chief Magistrate of the Union 
sounds the "fire-bell in the night;" from the regions of per- 
secution he invokes the spirit of religious intolerance and bids 
it erect its sable throne in this land of liberty and in this 
age of enlightenment and vaunted progress. 

Has history no terrors for his imaginntion. as he looks back 
over the sanguinary fields, the blocks, the gibbets, the stakes, 
which stand like grim milestones of blood across the religious 
track of the past 300 years? Or is the historic page as a 
sealed book to the unlettered soldier who has risen from 
the tented field to the Presidcncv, and who would clutch 



7 

at power and hold on to it with bull-dog tenacity even 
over the ruins of his country ? 

President Grant made a speech at Des Moines on the 30th 
of September last, at a meeting of the '' Army of the Tennes- 
see." He startled the country by predictino; the imminence 
of another war, and arrayinp; the hostile hosts, not on sectional 
sides of Mason and Dixon's line, but in opposite camps of " in- 
telligence and superstition." 

Intelli<z;ence and Superstition ! We look in vain for the 
words in the political vocabulary of the republic As 
Daniel Webster would say, It is net constitutional language. 
Does General Grant know what he is about? Would he 
deliberately explode an infernal machine among the ranks of 
bis now united countrymen, and. reviving the fanaticism of 
a bygone a^e, would he forge a wall of fire between fathers 
and sons, between members of the same communities, between 
citizens welded together in the ties of political brotherhood 
and peace ? 

The flank movement follows the direct assault, and a re 
li^ious firebrand is flung after the unsuccessful Force bill. 

We denounce this atrocious attempt of the President to re- 
call from its dishonored grave the howling dervise of Kuow- 
Nothiiigism. The successful soldier, in his ambition to 
(injoy a third term, in violation of the common law of Amer- 
ica, has seized the torch of religious persecution, and would 
apply it to the temple of the Most High no less than to the 
fabric of our civil liberties. 

We arraign President Grant for the prostitution of his 
L'reat (office to the promotion of his personal and political 
designs, and for seeking to incite a religious war among 
brethren who are now dwelling together in peace, and who are 
prepared to uphold each other's right to worship God ac- 
cording to the dictates of their own conscience, to the utmost 
extremiiy and against all comers. That sacred right was 
won irom tyranny by George Washington. The ritual of 
its consecration was pronounced by Franklin, Jefferson, 
Hamilton, and Adams; and General Grant is just a century 
ton late in his attempt to strike it down. 

THE FUTURE. 

In conclusion, we congratulate our countrymen on the 
favorable auo;uries for a brighter future. The House of 
Representatives has been handed over to the Democratic 
party by the American people The change means legislative 



8 



and administrative ref'orii). It means equal and exuet 
justice to all men, without regard to race or color, and the 
obliteration of the passions and antipathies which designing' 
politicians have fomented and kept alive at the South. It 
means purity of government and sacred observance of fuith 
with the public creditors It means a recurrence to first, 
principles in our Federal relations, and the inextinguishnbie 
love of the people for the twofold sovereignty of their States 
and their Union. 

Democrats of the city and State of New York I let us keep 
the faith with unwavering courage ', let us close up our lines 
for the civic battle of 18"() ; let us help carry our party in 
triuujph to 'Washington, in the Centennial year, as the 
champion of reform in administration, and the inflexible 
vindicator of the Constitution and the laws. 

JOHN J CLARKE. Chairman 
R. J. MORRISON, 
JA(;OB A. GROSS. 
WILLIAM A. BOYD. 

Committee on Affdrpus. 

JOHN KELLY. 

Chairman of Committee on Onjanization. 
Edward D. Gale, ^ 
Ge()R(JE W. Morton, > SccretarieH. 
Henry D. Purroy, ) 

ARRAM S. HEWITT, 
Chairman of the General Committee. 

Wm. II. QlTINCY, ") 

Thos. L. Feitner |- Secretaries. 

Alfred T. Ackert, ) 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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